An Apple store in Nashua, NH is at the center of a somewhat disturbing story surrounding the tasering of a Chinese woman who wouldn’t leave the store when asked.
The woman, 44-year-old Chinese national and Newton, Mass. resident Xiaojie Li, reportedly turned up at the store last Friday to buy two iPhones. After making the purchase, Li, who says she can’t speak English, then tried to buy several more iPhones but was refused by Apple store staff, who told her a two-per-customer limit was in place.
Unhappy with this, Li started videoing other customers she claimed were being allowed to buy more than two units. Hardly surprisingly, staff told her to leave.
Over the weekend, a determined Li apparently ordered two more iPhones online, returning to the same store on Monday to collect them. Staff recognized her and refused to give her the items, and once again ordered her to leave.
When she refused, staff called the cops. Despite an officer asking her to leave, Li stayed inside the store. At this point an attempt at arrest was made but Li reportedly resisted for 15 minutes.
Taser
In a video (below) uploaded to YouTube showing part of the incident, you can see – and certainly hear – Li screaming as she’s tasered by a cop.
Having been issued with a stay-away order by the Apple store, Li was arrested for trespassing and resisting arrest.
“If she left the store when she was told to leave the store, it would’ve been done at that,” Nashua police captain Bruce Hansen told WCVB TV. “She was told she was under arrest after repeatedly being told to leave the store. She didn’t submit to the arrest. The officer used the taser on her to get her to submit to the arrest.”
Resellers
With her daughter acting as interpreter, Li said she was buying the phones for relatives back in China, but according to Nashua police chief John Seusing, the store has been having trouble with visitors buying multiple devices to sell at inflated prices overseas.
Li, who was carrying $16,000 in cash when she was arrested, said through her daughter that she was trying to buy the handsets for relatives back in her home country.
Li’s boyfriend, John Hugo, said he was outraged by what had happened. “You go into a store, and you end up getting brutalized by the police,” he told WCVB TV, adding that even if she was a reseller, “does it rise to the level of getting a beating from police?”
[Small image: Stephen Coburn / Shutterstock]
“Over the weekend, a determined Li apparently ordered two more iPhones online, returning to the same store on Monday to collect them. Staff recognized her and refused to give her the items, and once again ordered her to leave.” This is the key. This staff refused to give her the items, not sell, give, because she already paid for them, the phones are hers.
If Apple allowed her to purchase 2 phones on its website and choose this store for pick-up, then she must be allowed to enter this store and pick them up. Of course she should not obey the store’s demand and leave without getting her phones. She did not attack anyone, she is defending her legal rights in a very appropriate way. This Apple store refused to fulfill an legit commercial contract, then hired a third party to assault the victim.
Buying 2 phones from Apple online store is definitely legal, carrying large amount of cash is definitely legal, and peacefully demanding the seller to fulfill a commercial contract is definitely legal. If by doing everything legal, she ended up being electrocuted, someone must have done something illegal, possibly criminal.
People cannot say that she deserve it because she resisted arresting, the cops cannot arrest people at will. It is their responsibility to investigate the situation first, then make the most appropriate decision. They cannot just use their electric gun to assault a 44 years old woman when she posts no risk to anyone or any property, let alone this action being solely based on the one-side story told by the store. Did the store staff inform the officers that this woman was there to pick up the phones that she ALREADY bought? No? That’s fine. If, as that police captain in the interview claimed, that there was no language barrier between the woman and the officers, then why the officers didn’t realize that she was there just to get her things back but the store refused to do so? Or did they know this well but went on shocking her anyways?!?! Isn’t this kind of action the very definition of police brutality?
If Ms. Li is as determined now as she was when she decided to buy the phones online and pick them up at the same store, I am sure this Apple store, and the two officers, are in for a lot of trouble.
Assuming the telling of the story in this piece is reasonably accurate, we know that the woman was asked to leave the store (rightly or wrongly) by the staff, and refused to do so. Then she was asked by a police officer to leave the store, and refused to do so. At this point she is trespassing on private property and refusing to comply with the officers. She can try to play the “language barrier” card all she likes, but once she has created a scene inside the store, refused to leave, and then refused all the officers’ verbal and non-verbal cues to leave, she is fair game for the taser.
You’ve stated here that this Apple store and the two officers are in for a lot of trouble. That much I agree with. But I would go further than that. We are all in for a lot of trouble. A pushy, aggressive, Westernized new breed of greed-headed young Chinese people have arrived on our shores with wads of cash in their pockets, prepared to buy everything that isn’t nailed down. When your new CEO at work turns out to be a Chinese dude who has just arrived here a week ago, and you are asked to take a substantial paycut and work 12 hour days, don’t come crying to me about some chick in the Apple store getting tasered, bro.
Also, at this point, the store manager and other personnel directly involved in telling her to leave, may also be guilty of theft. If she has paid for the merchandise and been informed by Apple via their website that she can pick them up at the store, the phones are her property AT THAT POINT. Not when they are physically delivered. She is legally the owner of the phones. The store personnel have violated the company’s sales contract with her.
To avoid such a charge, I’m pretty sure they would have to have a substantial claim (ie evidence other than simply her buying a number of phones) that she was engaging in illegal activity.
Sorry Joel, NO THEFT involved. See Federal Laws for why. Entire incident with the phone is Civil in nature. Became Criminal when she failed to leave. Read the State Law to see why.
Please provide reference if you are stating a law.
They are not hers when it becomes apparent that she was violating company policy and had already been told that she couldn’t buy more than 2 phones. And with 16 thousand dollars on her, that’s a lot of IPhones, Right there she got caught doing exactly what the stores policy was put in place to prevent.
Like I said somewhere, they shouldn’t have tazed here. They should have just drug her arrogant ass out by any means possible and introduced to her new friends in the holding cell. Where she belonged.
Do you think you could go to a foreign country and get away with acting like this? If you do than you really should rethink that insane idea;
She’s a scammer. Hope that she gets a nice sentence.
If the store did not refund her money then they are guilt of theft. Police did not appear to care about that.
And we don’t know if they did or not. I’m sure they did. They wanted her gone.
WRONG – they don’t have to let her in to pick up anything. She intentionally violated their policy and the store can always reverse her purchse charges. It’s a CIVIL matter anyway. She has no right to stay in their place of business. She can take it up in court CIVILLY if she is not refunded her money. If they tell her to leave and she refuses, it is tresspassing – a CRIMINAL offense and she is arrestable by the police end of story. If she resists arrests then that is a separate criminal offense. The tasing was resonable force in effecting that arrest. No one is “in trouble” but the Chinese woman.
And let me add, it said she “ordered” the phones online not paid for them yet.
When you order on line they ask for your name, address phone number,,credit card, credit card number, expiration date, security code, e-mail address so they can send you confirmation of the order, billing address if different from home, and do you have any coupons for this order.after this has all been done and the figures have been added up, then you may place the order for pick-up.If the credit card is rejected, so is the order. So when she went to pick -up her order, those phones were her’s, bought and paid for.. The police chose to just listen to the merchants side of the story and not get the whole picture.And in doing so, he violated her rights just as much as he would have violated yours or mine. The store is wrong in provoking him to do this by depriving her of her rightful property. If they wanted it backafter selling it to her, it was up to them to go to cout to sue for it, rather than get high fisted about it. Now it is REALLY going to cost them..
As per federal law: a company may not charge your credit card if you order online, until that order is shipped, or is picked up at a store you designate. Since the phones were never in her possession, her card was never charged.
If she spoke no English, how did she manage to use Apple’s American website. She could not use a foreign ( Chinese ) website and have the phones picked up out of country. If she was buying them as gifts, she could have put each phone in the recipients name to be picked up. She was re- selling, plain and simple, and probably spoke and understood English very well.
Of course her boyfriend will say she was beaten – he’s hoping for the money tree to lose some leaves.
Gyrene, As with Joel, she only entered into a CIVIL contract for a purchase. C I V I L Law will tell you why. Please read it.
They were under no obligation to turn over those phones. None at all. Not after they discovered her ‘deception’ in the sneaky way she ordered them. And if she didn’t want to cause trouble, she would have picked them up at ANOTHER store. I bet there’s more than one in town.
sorry if this is a repost. she was told to leave the store, she left the store, went home and ordered two phones to be delivered to the store from whcih she was told to leave, they recognized her and told her to leave again, she refused. the cops were called, they attempted to arrest her, she resisted arrest for 15 minutes…at that point, she got tased…she did not get tased for being in the store…it helps to read and/or comprehend the story you’re commenting on
the STORE HAS TWO ITEMS THAT BELONGS TO HER THAT SHE ORDERED. AND WHEN YOU ORDER ON LINE YOU PAY ON LINE. THE STORE IS THIEVES. EVERYONE INVOLVED SHOULD BE ARRESTED FOR THEFT AND DUTILY CHARGED AND ARRESTED. NOW DOES THEIR POLICY SAY TWO IPHONES A YEAR?? A MONTH?? IF NOT THEN ITS NOT CLEARLY STATED THEN. YOU BUY TWO TODAY COME BACK TOMORROW, ITS A DIFFERENT DAY THEN
Hey Justice, READ THE LAW.
Sorry, but you’re flat out wrong. The store staff isn’t guilty of theft. Perhaps, a more careful review of the laws concerning this matter would have kept you from making a full of yourself.